Doesn't the answer depend on what you guys are talking about? If you're just hanging out, are you talking about music? Or if either of you prefer cold peas as opposed to soft cooked, mushy ones? The weather? Your question is vague. Girls? That's always a big hit when hanging out....

In terms of the music, I would just tell him not to hit any bad notes and don't mess with the time. If he does that, then he gets to keep the gig. For now. ;)

I feel a story coming upon me... years ago I knew a couple of good guitar players who got together to form a big band. They had lead, rhythm, bass and a drummer, then they invited a keyboard player along to jam at a charity gig.
Since they were all good players they didn't rehearse, they just turned up and began by playing the usual standards. It sounded absolutely dreadful. Unbelievably bad, they were playing in different keys, off-tune ... a mess. The lead guy walked off stage, they all fell out with one another (scuffles in the car park out the back) and the band broke up.

What it turned out had happened is that they didn't tune to the keyboard and so they were completely thrown by the fact that nothing sounded right.
Just saying you know....

I'm not sure if todays electronic keyboards are still considered percussion since there are no parts hitting one another. I don't see many bands with actual pianos mic'ed anymore. Ask him where he thinks music is going in the next 100 years with the advent of electronic keys and synthesizers.

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Gretsch Renown

I have played with my keyboard player for 30 years this year. I mainly tell her to fill the gap of a rhythm guitar when necessary to give a more full sound on certain songs. I read once that Donald Fagen described his own piano playing like he "was playing a guitar". What I really appreciate about her is that she keeps the guitar players in tune and on key and makes sure of it.

Hmm...most of the complaints about musicians on this forums have been about guitar players and other drummers...

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You should learn to play each others instruments and gain a better feel for your own as a result.

Maybe even learning pitched percussion; marimba, vibes, xylo.

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My first 3 CD's approached the keyboard as a percussion instrument from the mind of a drummer.

...Chick Corea was a drummer before he was a pianist and Art Blakey was a piano player before taking up the drums, so it might be interesting to wonder how such a thing has an effect on style and creativity.

I suppose in an open ended discussion I'd tell the pianist not to be late and know the material. Were that an issue. And that the piano is a percussion instrument. That Stars wars is a successful movie franchise and that it is good to brush one's teeth.

My keyboardist and I get along really well, and I suppose it's mostly my respect for his ability to tame the raging moron that is our guitar player.

He's been playing since middle school, I believe, and he's the oldest member, so he has a lot of music experience with his instrument. He also plays clarinet, and has a lot of appreciation for other styles of music, so we click a lot.

So, I suppose I should feel blessed for having a keys player that's not a total douche.

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"At the end of the day you just draw pretty pictures on a field and play some rimp ska dimps."

From Dictionary >> Percussion; The striking together of two bodies, especially when noise is produced.

My hands still bang on the black and whites, piano or synth.

My first 3 CD's approached the keyboard as a percussion instrument from the mind of a drummer.

But those keys don't bang on anything. They just open circuits and electronic noise is made. Pianos have keys when depressed move hammers that strike strings. You fingers hitting or banging on the keys doesn't make any noise. This the reason keyboards of the electronic variety worth their salt have what are known as weighted keys to make them feel like true percussion instruments such as pianos. We will have to agree to disagree but electronic keyboards, Rhodes, church organs are not percussion instruments.
A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement, shaken, rubbed, scraped, or by any other action which sets the object into vibration. The term usually applies to an object used in a rhythmic context or with musical intent.

The word "percussion" has evolved from Latin terms: "percussio" (which translates as "to beat, strike" in the musical sense, rather than the violent action), and "percussus" (which is a noun meaning "a beating"). As a noun in contemporary English it is described in Wiktionary as "the collision of two bodies to produce a sound". The usage of the term is not unique to music but has application in medicine and weaponry, as in percussion cap, but all known and common uses of the word, "percussion", appear to share a similar lineage beginning with the original Latin: "percussus". In a musical context then, the term "percussion instruments" may have been coined originally to describe a family of instruments including drums, rattles, metal plates, or wooden blocks which musicians would beat or strike (as in a collision) to produce sound.

We will have to agree to disagree but electronic keyboards, Rhodes, church organs are not percussion instruments.

Actually the Rhodes does have hammers that strike what are called tines. Those tines were a bitch to keep in tune when I had a Rhodes, at least they were for me what with my way-too-heavy approach to piano playing, but it was that hammer striking the tine action that gave the Rhodes its unique percussive sound.